World of Warcraft: Azeroth by the Numbers
Blizzard released a nice infographic today that shares lots of fun WoW stats!

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

From the rise of Onyxia to the fight for Pandaria, more than 100 million of you across the globe have visited Azeroth since the first realms went live in 2004. We’ve gathered some epic statistics to show what you’ve been up to all this time.

Curious about the faction breakdown among the 500 million characters you’ve created? Wonder how many instances your fellow adventurers run every day, or which pet is the most popular? Take a look at World of Warcraft’s first official infographic below for some fun and surprising never-before-seen facts about the game.

We hope everyone enjoys this glimpse at the inner workings of Azeroth—feel free to find and share it on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for being a part of World of Warcraft’s history, and here’s to new adventures with you in Warlords of Draenor!

You can bonus roll Siege pets in appropriate difficulties due to community feedback about Quivering Blob. The pet is a separate roll from items, so it doesn't have any impact on winning other loot. (Source)

Patch 5.4.2 Hotfixes: January 28

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios

Siege of Orgrimmar

Immerseus

Immerseus' Swelling Corruption ability should no longer be incorrectly triggering from Balance Druid's Starfall and the Hunter talent, A Murder of Crows on Heroic difficulty.

General Nazgrim

General Nazgrim should no longer incorrectly be gaining Rage while in Defensive Stance from Balance Druid's Starfall and the Hunter talent, A Murder of Crows.

Malkorok

Living Corruption's Languish effect should no longer be incorrectly reapplied to players that were under the effect of a Mage's Alter Time spell on Heroic difficulty.

Items

Figurine - Khorium Boar should no longer incorrectly summon more than one Khorium Boar.

Patch 5.4.7 PTR Notes Update - Jan 28

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Battlegrounds and Arenas

Arenas

For the 2v2 Arena bracket, Dampening is now applied to the match starting at the 5 minute mark (down from 10 minutes).

For 3v3 and 5v5 Arena brackets, there is no change. Dampening will continue to be applied at the 10 minute mark.

Random Battleground Balance and Queue Times
We talk about stuff like this from time to time, but it's not quite so simple. For example, queue times are a big issue. Separating players out by item level certainly wouldn't help, and in fact, could make things far worse. Having more equally-matched opponents in your random BG would be nice, but having to wait an hour or longer... not so much.

That said, we're hoping to make a lot of improvements to Random BG's in Warlords. If we get the opportunity to do something like this, we can look into it.

Side note since I brought it up: we're also looking into queue times. We have a few ideas for changes we might make, but nothing for certain to share just yet. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

PvP Blue Posts
One of my personal goals since I started at Blizzard has been to help improve communication with the PvP community. And, though I know it's technically a different forum, I've been as active as possible on the Arena forums contributing what I can. Many of those concerns extend to BGs and RBGs as well, and if you have a concern here that's PvP-related but not necessarily specific to Battlegrounds, it might be a good idea to check the Arena forums too just in case.

That said, I completely hear you guys on wanting to see more interaction in the Battlegrounds forums. I do read them regularly already, but I'll make a stronger effort to interact here more often. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

PvEI miss using CC in dungeons and raids. Will this come back in WoD?
Not using CC in dungeons currently is mostly a result of being way stronger than the content is designed for. (Celestalon)I have needed 0 CC in MoP dungeons ever. Day 1 they were faceroll. Not saying that's 100% bad but it is true.
You are more experienced/skilled than most. That was not the experience for the majority. (Celestalon)

PvPWith cross-realm arena it feels like there is still one final barrier: faction. Any plans for cross-faction teaming for real ID?
No plans for that. (holinka)

yeah probably. I blame the 15 min ques between games! why are Horde ques so terrible?
There are more horde queuing. The problem is exacerbated if you opt out of unpopular BGs. Looking into options. (holinka)

FutureTrying Monk heals on my 90, all proving grounds does is say "you suck" No benefit to me over failing thru LFR
Proving Grounds currently just "tests", it doesn't "teach". That's something we hope to change in the future. (Celestalon)

Misc'scuse me could you shed some light on a little red dragon named Andrestrasz? Is he a tribute, a memorial, something else...?
I believe that commented earlier that he was a tribute, but wasn't sure. (Celestalon)
I'd bet $20 it's a homage to someone's 5 yr old named Andre but would have to dig into data to find out for sure. (Source)

Return to WoW Giveaway (EU)
Curse is giving away five 6 month WoW subscriptions in a few days, so be sure to sign up for a chance to win. This contest is only open to EU players, so please only sign up if you play on EU realms.

I remember making liberal use of remorseless winter on my DK back then, but definitely no pre-pull CC like poly or sap. I guess that sort of counts

And warriors used Shockwave... I don't count that as CC when it is basically part of your rotation, especially when it is not even needed. And skills like Remorseless Winter which do not take any thinking :|. But yes, technically we used CC... lol.

Yep I found them, the non EU people being disappointed that they can't get the 6 months Curse thing. 9/10 contests EU people can't participate because it's NA only, please let us have something for once...

I have needed 0 CC in MoP dungeons ever. Day 1 they were faceroll. Not saying that's 100% bad but it is true.
You are more experienced/skilled than most. That was not the experience for the majority. (Celestalon)

Wrong. I am not overly skilled, I am a casual (very) casual player, and no matter which instance or raid I've done in MoP I've -never- used CC or seen it being used, even on fights which are meant for it.

I have needed 0 CC in MoP dungeons ever. Day 1 they were faceroll. Not saying that's 100% bad but it is true.
You are more experienced/skilled than most. That was not the experience for the majority.

WTF is he smoking. Who used CC in MoP dungeons? Unless he misread and meant challenge modes and even then there is a lot of brute forcing with the use of interrupts and short term stuns, but that doesnt match with the previous statement of saying he outgeared the content.

You used it when you were grouping with morons. Which, you know, isn't all that uncommon when using the dungeon finder.

- 100M "players" including trial accounts.. thats like comparing a Page Views data to a Unique Visitors of a website. But I guess the bigger the fabricated fact, the more will believe it. I see they clarify the huge sized misleading text "100M PLAYERS" with small size text that it is actually accounts and NOT unique players like the big text suggests..
- 500M character created... of which how many are level 1 mules and spammers and bots? 10-20-30%? At least I guess..
- 2.8M transactions which is apparently 2 times the transaction what ebay had _5 years ago_.. imbecile comparsion.. A today's CPU can do 10 times the calculations what they were capable 5 years ago.. cool eh?

Fun facts == Cool lies? apparently so, but to me it is more like "questionable statements" than "fun facts".
The only thing I found a fun fact and might be even true is the most commonly used titles. But the most sounds more like they are just bragging on fabricated facts without anything to back them up.

- 100M "players" including trial accounts.. thats like comparing a Page Views data to a Unique Visitors of a website. But I guess the bigger the fabricated fact, the more will believe it. I see they clarify the huge sized misleading text "100M PLAYERS" with small size text that it is actually accounts and NOT unique players like the big text suggests..
- 500M character created... of which how many are level 1 mules and spammers and bots? 10-20-30%? At least I guess..
- 2.8M transactions which is apparently 2 times the transaction what ebay had _5 years ago_.. imbecile comparsion.. A today's CPU can do 10 times the calculations what they were capable 5 years ago.. cool eh?

Fun facts == Cool lies? apparently so, but to me it is more like "questionable statements" than "fun facts".
The only thing I found a fun fact and might be even true is the most commonly used titles. But the most sounds more like they are just bragging on fabricated facts without anything to back them up.

Well said overall. Thank you.
What I find funny is that 100 million accounts would mean that over 90% of people who they claim played WoW didn't/currently don't like it or don't/didn't find it to be worth the money, no? How is 1 out of 10 people liking the game a good thing to brag about?

just a little fact checking for collectors on that infographic, the 619 unique pets seems pretty accurate as guildox lists 614 on their site. However the 504 unique mounts is not jiving for me. Guildox only lists 409 mounts which includes all the gladiators and original unarmored mounts and everything. All it doesn't list is class mounts which adds up to i believe 14 unique mounts? Thus does that mean they are counting all the never implemented re-skins they've had on file over the years? Because that is just plain dirty. Not to mention that means some 80 reskins that never made it in? I can only think of about 30-40. Huh.

not sure what is the so attractive about the patient/assistant professor/jenkins titles

is the default titles when you create a new alt...I had the jenkins title for long time on my alt until I enabled to see titles in names and said "wtf"? and changed it immediately. Also I think that is the only titles you can have until you reach a certain level (60+).

Well said overall. Thank you.
What I find funny is that 100 million accounts would mean that over 90% of people who they claim played WoW didn't/currently don't like it or don't/didn't find it to be worth the money, no? How is 1 out of 10 people liking the game a good thing to brag about?

Thanks for sharing my opinion, but I have to say, I don't share yours. I mean.. you are leaning toward the opposite end of extreme in terms of processing and translating their numbers. Just because out of 10 people who played 5-10 years only 1 is playing actively still, it doesn't mean that those 9 people opinion is that this game doesn't worth its price.

I for one played since 2005, played casually at the start and ended up playing on the most hardcore levels of the PvE side of the game. I quit ~2 years ago.. because of life changes, interest changes and so on.

MoP haven't had any effect on me to renew my sub, but Warlords of Draenor might have, but who knows... I was in my 20s when I started playing, I am past 30 now and I cannot predict if and for how long WoD might keep my interest again.

I am just saying I don't hate WoW, not saying its not worth the price... quite the opposite, otherwise how could i been playing it for 7 years?

On the other hand I was never the fan of Blizzard's Community Manager's communication style. They like to talk about nothing for pages long. Explaining a very simple thing in pages long that people might think its a big thing or whatever.
I know its a way to keep up the hype and interest, but they are are just not very informative, they losing in meaningless details, twisting out things and words and sentences to make their agenda sound better and so on.
That is what I was pointing at with my previous post.

Anyone else has got an issue with that Curse giveaway where the button to enter the contest won't do anything? I have unblocked all the scripts on that site, and disabled adblock for it, and yet it still won't do anything.